


Packing It All Up

by AlliCassandra



Series: The Auror and the Baker [2]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Pastries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 06:33:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21114287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlliCassandra/pseuds/AlliCassandra
Summary: One morning, Jacob cannot take seeing Queenie's things around his apartment, so he starts to pack them away. Just when he feels like he might be overwhelmed with grief, Tina shows up to understand as no one else can.Jacob/Queenie with Jacob & Tina friendship.





	Packing It All Up

**Author's Note:**

> I needed something angsty and I wanted to write Tina and Jacob being friends, so I combined those two things and wrote this. 
> 
> If you're a regular reader and wondering "where the heck is the next chapter of UT?!" I'm working on it, I'm halfway done editing the next chapter, it will be up hopefully before the holiday season starts. (Can you believe it's October?)
> 
> Speaking of things I can't believe, FB3 starts filming in February!! Such good news!!

Jacob had decided that Queenie was like a ghost. 

She may no longer but with him in the flesh. (He shuddered to think of the company she kept now. It truly scared him.) However, even if she wasn’t with him physically, a part of her was everywhere. 

Some reminders of Queenie were obvious. _ Her _ side of the closet, and her heels on her side of the closet. The notes she’d made in Grandma Kowalski’s cookbook, which he had to see every time he needed to double-check a recipe. When he went to put on the coat she’d helped him buy. Her own space on his bookshelf were she had kept those wizard romance novels she liked. (He liked them too, he didn’t even deny it.) The picture of the two of them in black and white, beaming at him, utterly still like all no-maj photos, but Queenie’s smile was still as radiant and warm as ever. 

For the few few days after he got off the streamer back after Paris, he didn’t mind. Maybe it was denial or comfort. Now he just looked at it all and felt like he was drowning. 

Drowning in her and the look of surprise and hurt on her face after he’d called her crazy. 

His fault. It was his fault a group of MACUSA investigators had come to interrogate him about Queenie two days after he’d gotten back, because MACUSA still wouldn’t know about them if he hadn’t hurt her so deeply. And if he hadn’t hurt her so badly she wouldn’t have felt Grindelwald was the only person left who gave a damn, Tina wouldn’t have tears in her eyes every time they spoke; Tina wouldn’t be in trouble with her job right now, for knowing about the relationship, for saying nothing. 

They had wanted to Obliviate him, but Tina had even taken responsibility for his behavior. 

“If he tells a single soul, you can execute me as punishment,” Tina had said. She’d even been prepared to making an Unbreakable Promise or something, to ensure that he wouldn’t be a danger. 

While not unbreakable, Tina had still had to make a binding magical contract promising that Jacob wouldn’t reveal wizards to the no-majs, with steep consequences for Tina if he did. 

Not that he would tell anyone. Despite a few evil bastards, he loved this world and considered it to quickly becoming home, in many ways. 

At any rate, today, the thing he had stumbled upon had been a tube of Queenie’s lipstick in the bathroom of his apartment, mixed in with all his other things lining the counter, coulonge, a hairbrush, etc. He felt as though he had been stabbed, to look at it. Her pained at hurt face before she had turned to walk into the fire flashed before his eyes again. 

At this point, Jacob sighed deeply. He let his hands grip the cold white sink until his knuckles paled. 

“I can’t keep doing this, Queen,” he whispered. He had to pause a moment to account for the fact that he couldn’t breath, that he had a lump in his throat. “You’ve everywhere. So are the remainders that I failed you.” 

So, with that, he got a box and began to pack. First went her makeup into the box, the pinks and reds of lipsticks, the shades of blush. Next from his living room he took the embroidery she’d been working on, fancy flowers to brighten up the pillows, and packed those away too. 

This after, she’d all but unofficially moved in with him, after Tina had left. His customers had gossiped and people had whispered that he should marry her, rather than live in sin. He hadn’t cared what they thought, it being too complex of a situation to explain to other no-majs. 

Now he wished she had stayed at the apartment. 

Then the bedroom. The bedroom. He almost choked up at the sight of her dresses in the closet, her books that they would read to each other before bed, the bed where so much love had been made, the dummy where she’d worked on dresses on her days off from MACUSA. 

It was all so Queenie. He couldn’t believe that she wasn’t going to come back for any of her stuff. 

Of course, she served Grindelwald now, maybe the guy was rich enough that she could just buy anything new she needed. Tears leaked out of his eyes at the thought and he began to shove the books in, so he didn’t have to think about it. 

What hurt Jacob was that he knew Queenie had not joined Grindelwald out of a hatred for no-majs. She was naive due to living her whole life with Tina shielding her, she truly believed he wanted to make the world better. 

What would she do when she found out it was a lie?

_ Don’t think about it _. 

Next came the closet. The box was getting heavy, making his shoulder ache. He tossed in the heels, not even bothering to sort them by color or texture, which would have outraged Queenie, but how could he? The more time he spent with this stuff, the more her felt like his heart was being chopped into pieces, like he chopped apples for pies and strudels. 

Strudel. _ Queenie _. 

Once the shoes were taken care of, he started on the dresses, carefully and lovingly folding them up, even though he wasn’t sure what he would do with them, if Queenie would ever wear them again. 

If she would ever come back. And even if she did come back, if she did not die, would she still be his radiant girl, after being taken in by that bastard? 

Even if she came home, and was lucky enough not to go to prison, would he see her lovely smile again?

Jacob did fairly well until all that was left was that pink coat Queenie had loved, standing resolutely in the corner after everything that was gone. 

He remembered that beautiful smile, now she had looked at him as he’d looked at her with just a flicker of memory, trying to piece together who she was. 

In an instant, a name had come to him. 

_ Queenie. _

Then she had grinned at him. 

She could never grin like that again, possibly. Now, working for that man, she could get killed by an Auror, or even Grindelwald or one of his followers, once she wisened up and realized she was on the wrong side. 

Even if she lived, came home… No, he didn’t see how she would still be the same, still be that carefree. She would always carry the scars that Grindelwald would inflict on her, just like her still carried the memories of the war; the blood, the groans of the dying men, the gunfire—

It was then as Jacob took down the coat, that final item in the closet, that he began to sob into it. It still had bits of her blond hair, still smelled like her perfume. 

He slowly sank to the ground, clinging to the coat like it was a liferaft. He sat the box next to him. 

He didn’t notice the sound of footsteps, nor did her hear Tina until he felt her gentle hand on his shoulder. 

“Jacob?”

His head wiped up and he found Tina looking from him, to the box, eyes full of a fresh pain. Her eyes brimmed with tears as she sat down next to him, took off her trench coat, and wrapped an arm around him. Tears began to fall down her own face. 

“Look at what’s happened,” Tina whispered. “Look at what happened. You were so happy!” Tears began to stream down Tina’s face, on the white blouse she wore, into her mouth, as her worried expression crumbled into grief. “This is all my fault!”

Jacob lowered the coat, but did not let go of it and instead clung to it, as he stared at her. How could it be her fault? It was his fault. His words had driven Queenie to Grindelwald. He didn’t care how many times Tina told him otherwise: Alive and broken or dead by that man; he would always blame himself for whatever happened to Queenie next. 

“How the hell is this mess your fault?” Jacob gaped at him. “It’s mine. I never listened to why she wanted to get married. I never convinced her why we couldn’t. She thought I was too afraid to face the risks!”

Tina laughed. “You aren’t afraid of anything. No, it’s my fault. Queenie spends all her time supporting others. I-I keep replaying every conversation I had with her this year, the big ones. I don’t know, maybe I wasn’t empathetic enough.”

Tina wiped at her eyes. 

“Hey, wait just a minute Tina, we have been over this before,” Jacob said, he placed a hand on her shoulder as Tina wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “You were just trying to protect her, same as me.”

“Ah, well,” Tina sighed and looked around the now much-bearer apartment. “What the hell is going on here?” She seemed to taken in that Jacob had cleaned up Queenie’s things. Her eyes widened and her expression softened. “I can’t clean out her belongings. It reminds me of what I still have to do. To do better. That way, it’s all there and waiting when she gets back.”

Jacob had to swipe the tears dancing in his eyes again. Was he failing Queenie again by removing her personal effects? It wasn’t that he planned to give them away or anything, he just didn’t want reminders every day of the worst mistake of his life. 

Did _ that _ make him a coward?

Yeah, probably.

“Every time I come in this apartment Tina, I just feel like I’m drowning in the guilt.” For a moment he couldn’t continue because of the lump in his throat. The room blurred due to his tears. But he needed to tell someone how hard it was, or he felt like the pain might strangle him. “You realize there are only three possible things that could happen in the future right? Either this path—“for a moment he was too choked up to speak—“it gets her killed, he brainwashes her to the point where we can’t save her, or she comes back, but she ain’t the same as before.” 

“I don’t like to think about it either,” Tina bit her lip. She hugged herself and she stared downward as she pondered her word choice. “I’m an Auror, I know the danger far better than you could. Men like Grindelwald—“ she choked out a sob “—it’s usually a lifetime of service or death.” The cries truly poured fourth at that point, shaking Tina’s entire frame. 

Jacob had never seen Tina sobbing like this, not even about the _ Spellbound _ article. He reached over and pulled her close for a hug. 

It was good to know that the same worries that kept him up at night also bothered Tina, even though he hated seeing the tough Auror this broken. Those dark circles under Tina’s eyes, and the way she seemed to occasionally balance herself to avoid falling...

He hurried into his kitchen and came back with a pastry. For a moment, he felt like Jacob again. “Paczki? It’s raspberry flavored.”

Tina gasped. “Did Queenie tell you I like raspberry?” She bit into it. She sat up at her full height, eyes not leaving the pastry the way they were often locked on photos and notes about Credence, and more recently, Queenie. “Mercy Lewis this is good.” She closed her eyes in pure ecstasy. 

“She did,” Jacob said, sighing as he sat down next to her, his, the orange vest. He ate, but the pastry didn’t bring him as much joy as it usually did, even though it was Grandma’s recipe. Instead, it fought its way down. Would he be able to digest it? Keeping down two meals a day was a good day for him now. “I got a whole batch in the kitchen if you want to take some home. Grandmother’s recipe.” 

“That explains why they’re so damn delicious,” Tina said, smacking her lips. “Only a grandmother could create a recipe this good.” 

Jacob did not argue. He thought of his grandmother’s cookbook, forever marked with Queenie’s notes. He missed them both so terribly it caused a pain in his chest.

“What do we do Tina?” He lowered the pastry that refused to settle. He heard both Queenie and his grandmother in his head, urging him to eat. But what if he ate and it came back up? His eyes filled with tears again, which dripped onto Queenie's pink coat. “I shouldn’t have called her crazy. This is all my fault.” He choked out a sob. He hugged the coat tighter, as if it were the only safe thing left to hold on to. “She didn’t cross over until I insulted her. Whatever happens to her, I’m to blame…”

“Firstly, stop crying and eat the rest of the pastry,” Tina said. She handed him a handkerchief. “Secondly, from what you told me, she was already firmly set on going over before that. He clearly brainwashed her in between the times you saw her. That’s not your fault. You said she was unreasonable. I think the only thing that will change her mind going forward is seeing what he’s like up close and personal. The only question I have is, are you going to take her back when that happens? I’ve got good connections as an Auror, prison might not be an issue, depending on the circumstances…”

Would he take her back? It seemed like an obvious answer. He bit into his pastry, chewed despite it seeming very dry, and looked down in the box. All the components of Queenie.

“Of course I would, Tina,” he said. Everything in that box was a treasure to him, a small ingredient all of it together adding up to equal a part of Queenie. “She’s my whole world. I know she didn’t join up because she wants to kill no-majs or anything. She told me herself ‘he wants what we want.’ She doesn’t want to hurt people, Tina, and he can’t pretend that’s not his goal forever. Eventually, she’ll have to realize what he really is…” He forced himself to take another bite of pastry before talking again, even though it still tasted of dust or chalk. Maybe it was just him, since Tina loved her paczki. “Of course I’ll forgive her. I already have.” He shifted the box, fingering a pink lipstick, remembering her lips had looked in that rosy pink―and how they’d felt on his. “I don’t just want a box full of stuff Tina. ‘Not right now; didn’t mean ‘never.’ I do want to marry her, someday.” 

“You’ll have my full support when you want to put a ring on it.” Tina had finished her pastry at this point and now licked off sugar and raspberry from her fingers in a most undignified manner. “I guess we just have to trust that she’ll see the light eventually, and that when she does, she’ll be discreet. I… I can’t think of any other option, or I’ve failed her.” Tina swallowed. “And she was my responsibility after our parents died. We’ll get her back, somehow.” She stood up and offered Jacob her jam and sugar covered hand. “Come on, you must package up some of those pastries for me, I could eat five of them.”

Jacob placed the pink coat on his coat rack instead of packing it away. Maybe it ways Tina's words about trusting Queenie to be discreet when the time came, or maybe it was seeing her strands of blond hair in the coat or smelling her perfume, but maybe he just wanted one thing that reminded him of her. Maybe it was that hugging the coat had been comforting instead of painful. Regardless, he took Tina's hand and lead her into the kitchen to package her some baked goods. 


End file.
